Tom Watson: I support the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) in his recommendations. These are very serious matters and they mark a parliamentary milestone in an investigation that began in 2003, when my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked the now infamous question about payments to the police. Furthermore, as the hon. Member for Maldon said, this marks the beginning of the end of the role of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in this inquiry, although obviously we have reserved the right to return to the other arrested members of News International.
	The matter is not over for News Corporation, the police officers who failed to investigate properly back in 2006 or the computer hackers and other rogue private investigators whom some evidence suggests played a wider role. There are other investigations going on, but for now it is important that the Committee is united
	and that the House unites to send this document to the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges. I am sure that other Committees will play a role, but we are united in ensuring that the three people named receive some form of parliamentary justice. The last thing we want to do is interfere with the process of criminal justice. I hope that the House can unite around the motion.

George Young: I want to make a short contribution and to begin by commending my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) and his fellow members of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee for their painstaking and at times challenging inquiry into News International and phone hacking, building on the Committee’s work in the last Parliament. I thank them for their comprehensive report.
	The motion is a narrow one inviting us to note the conclusions of chapter 8 of the report and to refer it to the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges. I believe that this is the right course of action in the first instance and I support the motion. The Committee rightly observes:
	“The integrity and effectiveness of the Select Committee system relies on the truthfulness and completeness of the oral and written evidence submitted.”
	The Committee’s report contains four specific conclusions relating to possible contempt, which are set out in paragraph 275. The findings are, of course, disputed vigorously by the individuals and organisation concerned. Although it would be for the House itself to reach a final determination on whether a contempt has been committed and, if appropriate, to respond in the light of any recommendations by the Standards and Privileges Committee, it should do so on the basis of a full and impartial consideration of the facts and appropriate steps by that Committee.
	Should the Standards and Privileges Committee conclude that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee was knowingly misled, it would be right for the Standards and Privileges Committee to consider any appropriate action, having regard to the House’s 1978 resolution to use its penal jurisdiction in respect of non-Members as sparingly as possible and only when the House is satisfied that it is essential to act in order to provide reasonable protection from improper obstruction causing or likely to cause substantial interference with its functions. The Committee on Standards and Privileges, which is chaired with such distinction by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) andwhose members are accustomed to the impartial consideration of complex and contested issues, is well equipped for this role. The House should concern itself today, therefore, with the specific question whether to refer to the Standards and Privileges Committee the issues identified in chapter 8 of the report. I believe it should, and I support the motion.

Louise Mensch: That is an interesting question. There ought to be no difference. People are testifying before the Parliament of the United Kingdom when they testify before a Select Committee, and Parliament has the right to expect that it is not materially lied to. In my opinion, the same sanctions should apply.
	The whole House is familiar with the offence of contempt of court that is routinely used. Let us hope that it would not be so routinely used, but I believe an offence of contempt of Parliament ought to be created. It would be used only in the most exceptional circumstance and as with any other offence, it should be up to prosecutors to try it, and the protections of the court system and the defence system should kick in.
	As the old joke says, I wouldn’t have started from here, yet that is where we are. We must rely on the Standards and Privileges Committee because there is nothing else for the House to do in the present circumstances. Perhaps we need to look at the wider powers of Parliament, the importance of Select Committee hearings, procedures for creating offences, and the material problem that Parliament has a right to be told the truth in serious inquiries, whether or not a witness is under oath. That is something that the House ought to consider in future deliberations. For now, I am delighted to commend to the House the motion to note and not to endorse the report.

Philip Davies: I rise briefly to commend once again my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for the way in which he chaired what has been, at times, a challenging and difficult Committee, not just in this Parliament, but in the previous Parliament, when our conclusions were not always unanimous and we had a number of disagreements along the way. He, as ever, chaired the Committee expertly.
	I would also like to take the opportunity to commend the other members of the Committee. We did not always agree on these matters, but everybody put a lot of hard work into the report. There was a lot of dedication over a long period, and even though we may well have had an honest disagreement at the end of it on some matters, people should not underestimate the efforts that Committee members on both sides of House put in to get to where we are today, not least the hon. Members for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who put in a lot of time and effort to uncover the wrongdoing that clearly took place at News International.
	I absolutely endorse the case that was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon at the beginning of the debate on why the matter should be passed on to the Standards and Privileges Committee. I want to emphasise that the Committee did not come lightly to the decision that Tom Crone, Colin Myler and Les Hinton had lied to the Committee in its previous inquiry, and, it might be said, in this one too. I do not think that any Select Committee would lightly decide overtly to state that certain named individuals lied to them in the course of their inquiry. I want to press that point to the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee so that he appreciates that the decision was not entered into lightly. Those conclusions did not come flippantly, but after much serious consideration and deliberation.
	I also want to emphasise how our inquiry was repeatedly impeded by News International, not just this inquiry, which, to be perfectly honest, showed for the first time elements of News Corporation co-operating with the Select Committee, but particularly the previous inquiry, when News International repeatedly, consistently and corporately made it clear that it was impeding our inquiry. In case people are not aware, I have to report that News International attempted to have the hon. Member for West Bromwich East and me thrown off the Committee during the last Parliament because it thought that we would not be particularly favourable to them in our deliberations. As the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) made clear, it would be absolutely unacceptable if people could come to Parliament and know that they could get away with repeatedly lying to the Committee. If that did happen, it would open the floodgates for witnesses not to tell the Committees about anything that might be inconvenient to them.
	One brief point to emphasise how we did not enter into these matters lightly, the lies were not just little white lies, but deliberate attempts to mislead the Committee on serious matters. For example, my hon. Friends the
	Members for Maldon and for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) mentioned the letter that Clive Goodman sent to appeal against his dismissal to Les Hinton, saying that this practice was widespread in
	News of the World
	and that it was discussed on a daily basis. Yet Les Hinton made it clear that he had seen no evidence at all to suggest that the practice was more widespread, which was quite a palpable lie.
	We must also remember that on the back of the letter that Les Hinton received, he was responsible for making sure that, one way or another, Clive Goodman received a payment totalling around £250,000. For him to say quite flippantly that there was no evidence at all; there was certainly sufficient evidence for him to authorise £250,000 to be paid out from News International to Clive Goodman—somebody who was convicted of a criminal offence, caused huge embarrassment to the company and could have been dismissed for gross misconduct. I would like to press upon the House, and the Standards and Privileges Committee, the fact that that was not only repeated, but very serious and blatant.
	Finally, I would like the Standards and Privileges Committee to consider the motives of the people who lied to us—my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Louise Mensch) touched on this in her contribution—because it is not entirely clear why certain people lied. Was it to protect themselves, which might have been the case for some people, to protect colleagues, or was it to protect the company and its reputation as a whole? The Committee might like to consider what motivated those people to lie and whether different motivations should come with different punishments. I am not offering any particular opinion, but I think that that is something that should be put on the record.
	The reason I mention motives is that it was perfectly apparent during the previous inquiry in the last Parliament that witnesses from News International came to the Committee with a corporate game plan: nobody knew anything, nobody could remember anything, and nobody knew anybody who might know anything, and that was everybody’s defence at every possible turn. Whatever question was asked, that was the corporate defence from everybody who appeared before us under the News International banner, and it was particularly striking. I recall asking Les Hinton during that inquiry whether he had received any coaching before the evidence session so that we would know where we stood and whether News International had employed someone to advise them on how to answer the questions.
	That is something the Standards and Privileges Committee might want to look at, because to my mind, and that of the Committee as a whole, the three individuals we named palpably lied to us, and it is very interesting to consider how on earth that came about. Were they told to give those answers, or did they make that decision themselves? I certainly have a feeling that on some occasions they were told what to say and that it was a corporate decision, rather than one they made themselves.

Bernard Jenkin: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I regret the fact that I have been in the Chamber for only part of the debate, but I heard the opening remarks. I feel it is appropriate for me to inform the House that the Liaison Committee has charged me with working with colleagues to investigate how the whole question—it is very germane to this debate—of Select Committee powers should be exercised.
	Listening to these exchanges, I hear many matters that we have discussed and considered carefully, and I hope that the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee will have regard to the findings that I hope we will produce in short order, which should provide not only some guidance on how the Committee should conduct its investigation into the matter, but some guidance to the House on what the consequences of contempt should be and, in future, on whether we will need to avail ourselves of the courts or of our own procedures. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for emphasising that we are a House with a penal jurisdiction. That was a very important thing to put on the record.

Christopher Leslie: This important Bill took a considerable amount of time in Committee, but it was still insufficient to cover many of the amendments that will be necessary to ensure that it is fit for purpose and able to fulfil the job for which it was designed. The Opposition believe that the Bill can still be improved, so many of the proposals we did not reach in Committee or that were not addressed on day 1 on Report are in today’s amendment paper.
	This long group of amendments under the generic title, “Stewardship, etc.” covers a few issues, so I would be grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you would bear with me while I touch on the details. Although amendments 75 and 74 relate to stewardship, other amendments are on different topics, which I should also like to address under this group.
	On amendments 75 and 74, it is important to take the opportunity to ensure that the Bill properly improves institutional investors’ stewardship of pension funds or other savings or investments. Such funds are looked after by others on our behalf. In an ideal world, those who have pensions or other savings would spend time considering where they are invested, and whether they are invested ethically or in sustainable organisations and so forth. For reasons of practicality, however, that is often impossible, and investments are often grouped together in a basket of different products, so following the detail of where funds are invested is incredibly difficult.
	That is why many people choose to use institutional investors—to ensure their best interests are being served. That means ensuring a good and strong rate of return, but many people care about where their money is invested. Most of British industry is partly owned by the collective pension funds of our constituents. They have voting rights through the shares and equity they hold, but they are often exercised without reference to our constituents and delegated to institutional investors to make decisions on their behalf.
	The previous Administration and this one have therefore sought to address the quality of stewardship by institutional investors. Amendment 75 is on the threshold tests in the Bill and the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 on whether people are suitable or fit and proper, whether they have adequate resources to fulfil their responsibilities, whether they have close links with others in the sector, and so on. The Opposition felt it would be a good idea to ask Ministers to consider whether the array of reforms that should be made to corporate stewardship should be reconsidered in the light of those threshold tests.
	Amendment 74 also looks to the 2000 Act and the general rules of conduct of approved persons and seeks to amend the Bill so that it addresses key aspects of the
	good stewardship agenda. We argued in Committee and earlier that the Bill is a missed opportunity radically to improve the stewardship of some of the key players in corporate Britain, especially those large firms—banks and institutional investors—that have such a direct impact on society at large.
	The stewardship code was brought into force in 2010. We have had reasonable progress, with around 230 asset managers, asset owners and service providers signing up in the first 18 months, but sadly, the Bill does not reference the Financial Reporting Council, which is the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting, among other things, high-quality corporate governance. We want the Bill to do more to give regulators a proper and clear mandate to strengthen the stewardship code where appropriate and give them sufficient teeth to ensure that significant culture changes can happen. These things do matter. We have to build a framework that roots out bad habits and addresses what some people have called the principal agent dynamic—the fact that shareholders are often very fragmented and, when faced with unified managers are often unable to make any headway. Senior executives can sometimes respond only if there is a 50% plus one coalition of shareholders.
	We need to rekindle that dynamic. Some have said that it is time for a shareholder spring or awakening, and there have been some suggestions recently that certain company shareholders, at the annual general meetings and elsewhere, have begun to ask fundamental questions of the senior executives. It is the mismatch between the power that senior executives can have and the lack of power of—paradoxically—the owners of some of these large companies that needs addressing. In legislative terms, we often have debates about firm rules and fixed ways of doing business. Obviously, it would be preferable if the dynamic between owners and managers were able to ensure that we had a healthier, more open and transparent way of doing business.
	I commend those institutional investors who show an active interest in how they use the voting rights of their investors and use that leverage to try and influence positive corporate behaviour by the relevant companies. It must be tempting for many institutional investors, when faced with a company perhaps with a management dysfunction or some behavioural failing, to sell up and walk away from that company. That is too often the history of such shareholding. It would often be far better if shareholders, as owners, could stay and try to fix the culture of the organisations that they own. It is that sort of change that we need to find a way of addressing. Yes, some shareholders will not want to say publicly that they disagree with senior executives, because that could affect the share price and they would therefore be affecting their own financial interests in some ways, but there are several ways in which institutional investors need to have the ability, directly or indirectly, to influence what is going on.
	Protests in recent months have, in some cases, seen the rejection of some of the larger pay deals in big companies—for instance, the executive remuneration packages at Trinity Mirror, Pendragon and Aviva. The banking sector has also seen some significant shareholder disquiet, including at Citigroup and the rejection of the
	chief executive’s pay package. Nearly a third of Barclays shareholders voted against the pay policies in that particular company.
	So there have been some signs that shareholders are becoming interested in that more active role. This is perhaps to commend the work of the Association of British Insurers, which has done good work recently in encouraging its members to take a more active role. Those members account for some 15% of the stock market, and they recently wrote an unprecedented letter to the chief executives of some of the major banks in particular, saying that they were not happy and would no longer tolerate a “business as usual” approach when it came to remuneration, especially for executive directors.
	Those moves are very positive, but we should not feel that the balance between shareholders and executives is sufficient. The persistent imbalance needs addressing in a number of specific ways. For a start, a shadow is often cast across the Atlantic as many institutional investors feel that what are known as the “acting in concert” rules affect them here. To what extent can institutional investors come together and discuss with each other their ability to voice common concerns about the behaviour of managers? I have sometimes heard concerns expressed that this may somehow be in conflict with anti-trust regulations. If the Government could clarify the “acting in concert” rules, it would help to send a clear signal to institutional investors that it is possible to have those discussions, to come together to form a significant majority and to express a view about corporate behaviour.
	As I said, some progress has been made recently on the stewardship code, but the results of some surveys remain slightly depressing. In March, a business bellwether survey conducted jointly by the Financial Times and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators canvassed the views of company secretaries from the FTSE 350. It found that 79% of FTSE 350 firms reported that the stewardship code had led to no difference in meaningful engagement, with only 21% reporting a slight difference. Only one in 10 firms had actually met their top 10 shareholders in the past 12 months.
	The culture, then, is not changing radically enough. That is particularly clear with the bonus culture. On numerous occasions, we have debated bank bonuses and the fact that the culture there has not changed sufficiently. We still receive correspondence from many constituents totally aghast at the scale of some awards paid in the industry. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has reported on its efforts to curb excessive pay deals and talked, primarily, about the need for a binding shareholder vote on annual remuneration policy. That is welcome, of course, but insufficient, especially if the binding vote on future remuneration policy does not have enough teeth. It has been suggested by many, including some in the asset management industry—Fidelity Worldwide Investment, for instance—that a 75% super-majority might still be necessary. That would make companies consult shareholders far more widely prior to the vote and would maximise shareholder engagement.
	There is a series of other reforms on the stewardship agenda, however, that the Minister needs to consider and encourage the regulators to consider. For example, there is a strong case for simplifying and clarifying how
	executive pay is composed. Just finding out what exactly is being paid in remuneration packages is sometimes itself a high science. A case can be made for a basic salary element to be supplemented with one additional performance-related element to help to ensure that shareholders can clearly comprehend the absolute levels of executive pay. We need greater transparency so that shareholders can understand what is being paid to managers.
	It would be helpful if the reporting of pay packages was more standardised across a range of businesses and included single figures showing total remuneration. The Opposition believe that to increase transparency, shareholders should also be able to see awards that go beyond the boardroom, particularly in the banking sector. We have said that figures for the 10 highest-paid employees outside the boardroom need to be published, again so that shareholders can know what is happening. Let us bear it in mind that these things are not simply a matter of natural justice; they significantly affect the behaviour of those senior executives and the risks they take. If remuneration practices continue to reward excessive risk taking, linked to the exuberant activities that resulted in some of the more dangerous aspects of investments that took place ahead of the global financial crisis, it could ultimately lead to a significant liability for the taxpayer. This is relevant if we are to learn the lessons of the financial crisis.
	There is also a case for ensuring that employees have a greater stake in what is happening within the companies in which they work. The proposal—put forward I think by the High Pay Commission—to publish the ratios of the pay of the highest-paid employees to that of the median would be a good way of ensuring a better sense of how a company was bringing all its stakeholders along in its business plan.
	One of the key issues that still requires action is something basic: the mandatory disclosure of voting patterns by institutional investors. Many institutional investors are beginning to disclose their voting practices. That is a good thing, but in this day and age, that needs to be a basic, minimum requirement. A number of organisations, including FairPensions and others, have been pressing for the change, and the time for action has come. Not only would the mandatory disclosure of the voting patterns of institutional investors help to inform the owners of stock—the investors in companies—of what was being done in their name; it would also promote competition and choice, so that consumers could judge where their investments might best be placed to match their views, whether ethical or environmental.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) has an amendment in this group, and she will no doubt talk to it in a moment. It is of course important to ensure that regulators and the sector pay greater care and attention to ethical, human rights and sustainability questions. However, I also want the general public—pensioners, and other savers and investors—to have the information about what is being done in their name with their investments. That is why the mandatory disclosure of voting patterns is so important. The Minister therefore needs to trigger the powers in the Companies Act 2006, which are ready to go, so that they are brought into force and the stewardship agenda is promoted, and to do so as soon as possible.
	However, one of the most important reforms to stewardship must be the reform of remuneration committees in large corporations, in particular those in the financial services sector. I hope that amendment 38, standing in my name, will gain some traction with the Minister. Although we debated the matter in Committee, he must surely be persuaded by now of the virtues of ensuring an opportunity to appoint an employee representative as a member of a remuneration committee, and also that remuneration consultants—the specialists tasked with advising on the appropriate, going rate of pay for senior executives—should be appointed independently by the shareholders, not by the managers, who have a vested interest in the outcome of any review. Again, this is a pretty basic corporate governance reform, so I hope that the Government will accept the merits of it.
	I cannot stress enough the importance of ensuring that employees have a better voice in addressing some of these questions. There is an incredible propensity for loss of morale in some of the big companies in this country if the employees feel totally disconnected from the continuous high pay, remuneration and bonus culture that they sometimes see in their own companies. When we have debated the issue in the past, the Minister has said, “We can’t possibly put an employee on a remuneration committee because that would involve a conflict of interest”—that is, because the employee would somehow be voting on their own pay and conditions. There are ample ways of dealing with conflicts of interest; the key thing is that the employee should have a voice to express a view about the ratios of the highest-paid to the typically-paid in a company, to ensure that we do not just have managers commenting on management pay, but that others can comment too. That would lead to a healthy dynamic on remuneration committees, and it is something that already happens in many of our European neighbour industries. We know that John Lewis and other UK companies already follow many of these best practices; I think the time has come for such arrangements to be broadened out.
	It is also important to make sure that we move on from the perception that the remuneration consultants who are hired constantly make recommendations that please the highly paid management in some of these large banks and large corporations. Consultants will, like a sunflower, always face the sunlight and if they feel that their appointment will come by saying the things that please the people making the appointment, they will continue to say those things. There are some great consultants out there, and I do not, in any way, wish to denigrate their integrity, but, generally speaking, the culture can give rise to a perception that something is not quite right in how recommendations are made. So to ensure that those recommendations and the consultants’ behaviour are beyond reproach, it is important that we place this power more firmly and clearly in the hands of shareholders. That deals with amendment 38, and those are the points on the stewardship agenda that I hope the Minister will address.
	Amendment 73 deals with a slightly different topic, as it seeks to amend clause 40. It has largely come about because of recent reports that small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK may have been mis-sold products by some of their bankers. In particular, some SMEs that might have taken out loan agreements were also told that they needed to take out an interest rate swap
	product—a hedge or an insurance against interest rates going too high—and therefore made such arrangements. Increasing concerns are coming to light about the way in which that practice occurred, with serious questions being asked of the commercial banks. This is obviously not of the scale of what happened with personal protection insurance, because that involved many millions of individual consumers being mis-sold a product. We are still in the early stages of finding out just what has happened, so this amendment seeks to bring forward powers giving small firms an ability to complain and to bring proceedings —court proceedings if necessary—to ensure that they could get proper adjudication on whether they were indeed mis-sold a particular product.
	The amendment would do two specific things. First, it would require the Government to introduce proposals within three months of Royal Assent of this Bill to make it easier for groups of small firms to bring collective proceedings—class action suits, as they are often called—before the courts in respect of financial services claims, with the right to opt out for those companies not wanting to be party to the outcome of those cases.
	I have written to the Minister on these points. Several years ago, he debated this issue when it came up during proceedings on the Financial Services Bill in 2009-10. He was then in a shadow role and he argued that the provisions could not go ahead because sufficient consultation had not taken place—the then Government undertook that consultation, partly at his behest. He has now been in office for a couple of years and we have another Financial Services Bill before us, yet still there is nothing in legislation on this.
	In correspondence, the Minister tells me that
	“legislating for collective proceedings through the Financial Services Bill would neither allow for the appropriate degree of consultation or take advantage of the opportunity to learn from the responses to the BIS consultation on private actions in competition law.”
	All our amendment seeks to do is ask the Government to bring forward proposals within three months of Royal Assent. That would surely give ample time for proposals to be formed and for consultations to take place. If the Government cannot legislate now to help small businesses to ensure that, if necessary, they are able to undergo those collective proceedings to get justice in their cases, I do not know when a better time would be. The Minister needs to give us a little more information about the time scales he has in mind and the legislative vehicles he feels might be more appropriate than this Bill. The amendment would also empower SMEs to complain to the regulators, going beyond the collective proceedings in a court, and to give representative bodies the right to complain about market failures—in this case, to the Financial Conduct Authority—in the same way that consumers can complain.
	SMEs are consumers, just as individuals are; and just as individuals can be victims of mis-selling, so can small businesses. There will from time to time be vexatious or malicious complaints about particular products, but they can be dismissed by the regulator. The Minister has helpfully tabled an amendment to clarify that a small firm—it might be an independent financial adviser or an approved person—should not be deemed as a consumer when making a super-complaint. That is a perfectly good amendment, but we need to recognise
	that there is a gap in the legislation when it comes to small firms wanting to make complaints in their role as consumers of financial products.

Stewart Hosie: Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that, if the amendment is passed, financial institutions might stop providing the hedge products against interest rate changes or forex changes that SMEs might need and from which they might benefit? Is there not a slight risk of those products no longer being available, adding to the risk of SMEs over a period of time during which interest rates and foreign exchange rates might change?

John McDonnell: I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from but we have tried that and it has not worked. We sought under the recent Companies Act to increase the responsibilities on directors, but unfortunately we were unsuccessful. The evidence that came to the London Mining Network report, which I shall send to the hon. Gentleman, clearly shows that the existing system is not working, and this Bill provides an opportunity to enhance the powers of the regulatory authorities in this country.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) will not push the amendment to a vote. I understand why, although I am a bit more proactive on these matters. May I suggest to the Minister that the Government usefully look at the report and bring together the relevant representatives, including the existing authorities and the new individuals who will sit on the various authorities when the Bill has gone through, to discuss where we go from here? How do we ensure that we have an effective mechanism that includes the monitoring of corporate ethical behaviour within companies that are listed in this country and that gain all the advantages from that,
	such as reputational advantage, but that are doing our country a disservice through their operations in the developing world?

Mark Hoban: I am always loth to offer meetings on behalf of colleagues, because it has happened to me, but the hon. Gentleman may wish to approach the Minister with responsibility for consumer affairs, who is also responsible for corporate governance and the role of the FRC. That might be the most productive furrow to plough.
	On amendment 38, the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) is absolutely right that we have heard it before. It is identical to amendment 150, which we discussed at some length in Committee before rejecting it. I do not think his arguments today were any more persuasive than they were a few months ago. I know that he will find that personally disappointing but I am sure he will get over it. In short, the objectives of each authority are broad enough to enable them to make the rules suggested in the amendment.
	More generally, these issues are better considered in other forums, including those concerned with governance across the corporate sector. I also point out gently to
	the hon. Member for Nottingham East that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills recently consulted quite widely on executive remuneration and that it included in that consultation both the suggestions that have been made, neither of which received significant support.
	[
	Interruption.
	]
	The hon. Member for Nottingham East says that it depends who we consulted but it was an open consultation. Views were encouraged from across a wide range of bodies, including investor organisations, and I am sure that institutions such as the TUC and others would have taken part. I know that the Treasury Committee is also looking into this matter, so perhaps the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) can illuminate us about the conversations he has had this afternoon with Baroness Hogg.

Mark Hoban: As a consequence of the reforms that we are introducing, we are giving the FSA, and now the FCA, tougher powers to tackle these problems. The FSA has a much-reduced appetite for risk and a more interventionist approach to tackling matters where there appear to be consumer detriment. Some people feel very uncomfortable with this, but it is right for the FSA to act vigorously in defence of consumers and to take the necessary action to ensure that consumers get a fair deal. The Bill takes that one step forward and that is why we have been keen to ensure that we give the FCA more powers, which it has demonstrated the appetite to use.
	Amendments 5 and 6 require the FCA and the PRA to publish a statement explaining how they consider making the proposed rules compatible with the principles of regulation set out in new section 3B. Given the important framing role of these principles, I agreed with the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Nottingham East in Committee that the Bill should be explicit about the regulator’s duty in that regard, and I committed to tabling the appropriate amendments when the Bill returned to the House. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be keen to support them.
	Amendments 13 and 14 are minor and technical and are designed to maintain a position currently provided for in FSMA whereby the FSA is not required to make rules for the FSCS that provide cover over all regulated activities. The amendments ensure consistency with section 214(1)(g), which provides that the scheme may in particular provide for a claim to be entertained only if it is the type of claim specified by the scheme. These are technical changes and I hope that hon. Members will support the Government amendments and reject those tabled by the Opposition.

John Hemming: I think there are two issues in this debate. First, everybody agrees that mutuals are good. They are good in a number of ways, one of which is that “boring” is good in finance. We need more boring finance —we need things that will not double one day, fall by a half the next, and go bust by next Wednesday. We have had too much “interesting” stuff in finance; we need some more boring stuff. Building societies have always been relatively stable—nothing much has changed; things are gradual, with perhaps a few mergers. Some building societies have suffered as part of the financial problem,
	and in other countries some credit unions have suffered. I should declare what is perhaps a non-declarable interest, namely my membership of Citysave, Birmingham city council’s credit union.
	I think there is a major role for such bodies—the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) highlighted the issue of people having a stake in society. That is a very good thing, as is the fact that mutuals look to serve their depositors—often they will be depositors and borrowers. To that extent, I welcome the fact that the Opposition have raised this issue for discussion. The difficulty is that the amendment—it is a permissive amendment: it allows, for instance, the number of members of mutuals to be counted—is the sort of thing that would be done anyway. A mutual could be sent an e-mail saying, “How many members have you got?” It really does not require a statutory instrument to—[ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) says from the Opposition Front Bench that the number of members of credit unions is not being tracked. However, the amendment does not require it to be tracked, as he knows.

Geraint Davies: This is about having the reliable and consistent measurement of data in order to measure the effectiveness of policies, rather than having to rely on looking at the website of whatever trade association we are talking about. That is the essence of this amendment and it is why I support it.
	The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) mentioned the Rochdale pioneers, and I am glad that he did so. At that time, the idea of co-operation, co-operatives and mutuals was forged very much in the fire of unbridled capitalism and an economic Darwinism that I know some hon. Members would like to see return in the so-called “spontaneous order” of things. In that unbridled free market, the weaker members of society were being crushed, and a collective, mutual ownership emerged, through mutual societies and co-operatives, that enabled normal people to share risks, benefits and ownership, and to reinvest surpluses in their mutual. That is why those organisations grew, and I am very proud consistently to a have supported them.
	One of the questions that arises is: why has there been a slight falling away of mutuals over the past few decades? Partly it has been because the Conservatives pushed demutualisation to get quick profits for their friends, who are involved in the capitalist system to make quick profits. Then, in 2008, we have this tsunami and suddenly people wake up in the debris of this chaos realising that some of the surviving organisations are mutuals, and they rightly ask why that is. The answer, of course, is that the focus of mutuals—their raison d’être—is not about just reaching out to maximise profitability and taking irresponsible risks; it is about delivering services for their members, who have equal shares. As a result, the time of mutuals is back.
	This is a time of enormous global financial turmoil. We all know about the risks from the sovereign debt of Greece, Spain and elsewhere, and the knock-on impacts of that. We also face a great deal of risk from German banks and other financial institutions that do not have the inherent solidity and risk management of the co-operative system. If the Government are serious about this, now is the time to move forward. The coalition Government have said that they will move forward, but they cannot even be bothered to measure the market share and the number of mutuals. So how seriously can we take them? The answer, self-evidently, is: not seriously at all. The top management consultancy McKinsey has the mantra, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” That company knows that that is self-evidently the case, but we are saying here, “We don’t really want to manage it. We won’t measure it. It does not really matter.” That is what is coming across, and it is a great shame that it is.
	Labour Members are saying, “Let’s paint a picture of how things are changing. Let’s try to use that to make progress and to actively encourage credit unions, housing co-operatives and so on.” Such organisations tend, by their very nature, to be locally owned, with local benefits for local people. That contrasts with the situation described by the hon. Member for Stone mentioned, whereby a member of the Royal Bank of Scotland may find that Santander has suddenly sent them part of their bill, and they wonder why that is and whether there is a risk from the Spanish contagion, linked into the Greek risk. Somebody was mentioning that sort of situation to me the other day, and of course it arises because of the global nature of these organisations.
	People want the security and assurance of knowing that they can go to local co-operatives and be offered loans if they save, whereas they would be excluded from high street banks, which would say, “You’re too poor. We can’t give you an overdraft”, but if people were in a
	credit union they could get one. A lot of this is about risk management and stability, but it is also about ethics. We know that mutuals—the Co-op in particular—are trying to promote fair trade, sustainability and so on. If we are serious about encouraging risk management, and a better and fairer future for all our communities with mutuals, we should be serious about pushing forward the top line of this amendment—that to manage it, we should measure it. I very much hope that the Minister will accept this modest amendment.

Christopher Leslie: “Actions speak louder than words”: that is the conclusion that the Minister reached when rebutting this modest amendment. Some Opposition Members said that it was too modest, and not strong enough. You cannot win when you are in Opposition. Sometimes Opposition Members propose amendments and are told that they go much too far, but it seems that this amendment did not go far enough.
	The aim of the amendment was simply to hold the Government to account in respect of their own promise in the coalition agreement to produce detailed proposals to promote mutuality. The Minister tried his very best. My hon. Friends could probably hear the sound of the barrel being scraped as he listed all the papers, reviews and consultations—half of which, by the way, had their genesis under the last Labour Government, or were thanks to the European Commission.
	The Government’s commitment to mutuality is conspicuous by its absence. They have an embarrassing dearth of commitment to the mutual sector. The Minister must do far better than this. As my hon. Friends have said, it is no wonder that the Government do not want to measure the progress that is being made in any modest way. I think it is time that we held them to account.
	Members in all parts of the Chamber care about the mutual sector. I greatly respect the work that is being done by the all-party group, and the commitment of others who believe that it is important for us to take the steps that are necessary to support the mutual and co-operative sector. All that we were trying to do was obtain from the Government some sense of how they were doing in relation to the coalition agreement, but the best that we have been able to secure is a scraped-together consolidation Bill that does some administrative tidying up. It is not good enough, and I therefore wish to press amendment 72 to a Division.
	The House divided:

Ayes 218, Noes 271.

Andrew Tyrie: I much agree with the sentiment of the remarks of the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) a moment ago, and I will elucidate a little on some of the points that I think their lordships might want to look at. The Bill is the most important overhaul of financial regulation ever undertaken in this country, and it has implications for the health of the whole economy and affects everybody—every citizen, every business up and down the land. Along with the forthcoming banking reform Bill, it will change the landscape of our financial services industry, in which we lead the world in many areas and on which so many jobs in the UK depend.
	The legislation certainly leaves this place in better shape than it might have done, which I think has something to do with the number of amendments that have been tabled and arguments that have been listened to by Ministers. Sometimes those arguments have come from those on the Opposition Front Bench, sometimes from the Public Bill Committee, sometimes from the Joint Committee, and sometimes from the Treasury Committee, which I chair. On that, I would like particularly to thank my colleagues with whom I work on the Committee who have been so helpful and generated so many ideas, helping put together the succession of reports that we have put out. They have, to some degree, influenced the shape of this Bill.
	None the less, it is the Treasury Committee’s considered conclusion that the Bill is still defective in a number of respects. On the first day on Report, the Committee proposed a new clause to make the court more transparent and to require it to act more like a proper board. The Bank must have a board that is capable of assessing the institution’s performance, but it is explicitly prohibited from doing so at present. In view of the Minister’s favourable response to that new clause in the debate a few weeks ago, I look forward to seeing movement on the issue in another place. A number of other defects remain in the Bill, a few of which I will list in a moment.
	It is important to put on the record one or two other points. Right from the beginning, the Government made decisions about the reform and the timing of the Bill
	that, in my view, have made the legislative process more complex and difficult than it could have been. For a start, we should have had a new Bill, something on which the Governor of the Bank of England and the Treasury Select Committee wholly agree. The complexity of the Bill could turn out to make it a lawyers’ charter—I only hope not.
	Then there is the rush to get all this done quickly. After all, the horse has bolted. We have just had a most serious financial crisis; a crisis of the sort that we might have hoped the legislative framework would have protected us from. We now seem to be legislating to what can only be described as an arbitrary timetable in order to get the Bill through by the end of the year. Neither I nor the Committee have heard a good reason why we cannot take a few more months to get the legislation right. That meant that the Bill was produced without taking into account a number of views, including that of the Treasury Select Committee, on the shape of the Financial Conduct Authority. Some of the Bill’s current weaknesses owe something to the fact that not enough attention was paid to those views. We must therefore depend on the other place to get the legislation right.
	I will briefly summarise a number of areas to which the Treasury Select Committee has drawn attention and which I hope the other place will look at. First, I have already mentioned the new clause that my colleagues and I proposed for improving accountability, and I am glad that there has been Government movement on that.
	As I said on Report, all proposals to improve accountability, both of the Bank to its board and to Parliament, should be judged against two criteria. First, does the proposal hold out the prospect of improving the performance of the institution, meaning the quality of public policy decisions that the Bank will take, and secondly, does the proposal help secure public consent for the decisions? That is particularly important in a powerful body that is remote from the citizenry, such as the Bank of England. On both criteria, and particularly the second, the appointment and dismissal of the Governor would benefit from a parliamentary veto. The Treasury Committee’s second point is that the independence, authority and, in a sense, legitimacy of the Governor’s decisions will be enhanced if there is a parliamentary veto, through the Committee, over the appointment and dismissal of the Governor.
	Thirdly, the Financial Policy Committee and the court should publish full minutes. The Government’s proposed compromise, that a so-called record be published, simply will not do and will not be enough to satisfy the Treasury Committee. We will inevitably end up demanding the full minutes and, one way or another, will persist until we get them.
	Fourthly, the Chancellor needs a general power to direct the Bank of England in a crisis when public funds are at stake, not the rather strictly circumscribed powers the Bill currently contains. The Government picked up part of the proposal that the Committee made in our report on the need for some kind of limited power of direction for the Chancellor over the Bank in a crisis in order to deal with the problem to which the previous Chancellor has alluded, not least in his rather graphic memoirs of that period. The measure that the Government are proposing to put on the statute book might deal
	with the current crisis, which we have had over the past few years, but it might not put at the Chancellor’s disposal the right tools in some future crisis.
	Fifthly, there needs to be enhanced scrutiny of the secondary legislation that will accompany the Bank of England’s macro-prudential tools. The hon. Member for Nottingham East referred to exactly that when he talked about the need for a super-affirmative procedure, and the Treasury Committee agrees: we must have something that provides for full debate and time to consider the proposals, except in case of emergencies.
	Sixthly, the MPC and the FPC should both have a majority of external members. We on the Treasury Committee think that, in the longer term, this is essential in order to guard against group-think on those committees.
	Seventhly, the Lords needs to look again at the Financial Conduct Authority’s objectives. The FCA would work better if it focused on a single set of objectives. Midway through the process, the Government added to the proposals what they describe as overarching strategic objectives, but the Treasury Committee concluded that they add nothing to the operational objectives in the Bill and might, indeed, take something away by creating confusion.
	Eighthly—but by no means last, and certainly not least, although I probably will end on this point—the Financial Conduct Authority’s accountability mechanisms need strengthening. The FCA should publish its minutes, its chief executive should be subject to pre-appointment scrutiny and it should review its own performance without the need for the Treasury Committee to force it to do so. The Committee managed to get the Financial Services Authority to review the collapse of RBS, but it was hard work persuading it to do so.
	The Financial Conduct Authority has been the poor relation throughout this process of parliamentary scrutiny, and regrettably the legislation carries over into the new body many flaws—the box-ticking culture, the burdensome problems of regulation, its cost and some of the regulation’s apparent pointlessness—in existing FSA practice, so I very much hope that their Lordships get their teeth into that problem.
	Overall, therefore, this legislation is a big step forward from the legislative framework that was in place at the time of the crash, but much more could be done to improve it further. It really could be so much better, and there is still time to do something about it. Let us hope that, when it comes back from the other place, that work has been done.

Theresa Villiers: We are in discussions with both the CAA about the practicalities of the move and with those Department of Transport staff whose posts we expect to move. At the moment, we are not able to give them all the answers on all the issues, partly because the Bill has not passed as yet, but also because issues such as pensions are under review both in the civil service and in the context of the CAA. But we are very conscious of the need to try to provide as much visibility and information as possible, and we are working to do that, although it will take time to work through certain issues.
	On environmental matters, the Opposition tabled an amendment on Report—it was extensively debated—that would have imposed a supplementary environmental duty in relation to the CAA’s airport economic regulation functions. I understand the motivation for such an amendment, as I said on Report and in Committee, but I believe that its aim is already provided for in the Bill, which already allows the CAA to approve reasonable investment in measures that mitigate environmental impact. No doubt the discussion on whether further clarification on that point is needed on the face of the Bill will continue in the other place in the same constructive and thoughtful way that it has in this House.
	I must emphasise, however, that the Bill already includes important new information provisions to help us address the environmental impact of aviation. The Bill gives the CAA powers to collect and publish information about the environmental effects of civil aviation. Not only could that be used to give more information to communities affected by aircraft noise—hon. Members know how significant an issue that is for many people—but it will ensure that passengers have better information about the environmental impact of their travel choices than is currently available. We believe that improving transparency will help us to harness consumer power in pushing for progress towards cleaner and quieter planes.
	Some have called for more on the environment to be included in the Bill, but to be effective, environmental measures need to be applied proportionately across the whole sector and not just focused on those airports that happen to be subject to economic regulation. So separately from our efforts contained in the Bill to reform economic regulation, a number of initiatives are under way to deliver cross-sectoral action on the environmental impact of aviation. Adding aviation to the European emissions trading system is expected to deliver carbon savings across Europe of some 480 million tonnes in the period to 2020. Both NATS and the CAA have a strong focus on reducing fuel burn and addressing noise in their work on improving airspace management, and the Government will soon publish a consultation on a sustainable framework for aviation. We are clear that aviation should be able to grow, but it must also play its part in delivering our environmental goals and protecting the quality of life of local communities affected by aircraft noise and other local impacts.

Henry Smith: I would not accept that the Government’s aviation policy is either anti-aviation or anti-growth, as shown by the fact that we are now on Third Reading of a Bill that will produce greater flexibility in this sector—vital for a trading nation such as ourselves. I believe the Government should be congratulated by hon. Members on both sides of the House on that achievement.
	Returning to my principal interest of Gatwick airport—I am the local Member of Parliament—I believe that it can grow by a further 11 million through-passengers than the current market share shows. The airport’s overall market share is only about a quarter of the total. Gatwick is not a monopoly, so it does not need to be economically regulated. The market should be allowed to work. Deregulation would allow Gatwick the flexibility to invest with pace in new infrastructure to accommodate developments such as the new A380 aircraft and undertake much-needed investment in areas such as the border zone. Through deregulation, Gatwick can emerge fully in line with the views expressed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister as an airport that can fairly compete with Heathrow and others. As an economically regulated airport, Gatwick cannot invest flexibly or price services according to what individual customers want or what the market will support.
	The Bill outlines a series of tests that must be met for an airport to be regulated. These aim to determine whether an airport has substantial market power and, if so, whether there is a risk of abuse of that position, which existing competition law is insufficient to control. An airport that meets the market power test requires from the CAA a licence to operate, which may include a price cap on what can be charged to carry passengers.
	With Gatwick being sold by BAA two and a half years ago and now separately owned and operated, I very much agree with the Transport Select Committee’s findings:
	“Given the greater degree of competition that now exists between airports in the south east of England…the CAA should undertake its economic regulatory duties with a relatively light touch.”
	Several members of the Public Bill Committee expressed a similar view. On Report, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) said, correctly in my opinion:
	“If Gatwick feels that it should invest significant sums of money in better terminal facilities in order to service the A380s and…allow the sorts of routes to high-growth markets in Asia that we so strongly support, I see no strong reason why it should be prevented from doing so and charging what the market will bear. I believe that that could be to the benefit of the consumer.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 1031.]
	Similarly, in Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), whom I am pleased to see in the Chamber, noted that the CAA started
	“from a position that… airports are regulated, and appears to want to keep them that way…. we should regulate airports only
	where is a definite need to do so, and where there is a real advantage to the user, rather than looking to regulate unless we can find a way out of it.”
	––
	[
	Official Report, Civil Aviation Public Bill Committee, 
	28 February 2012; c. 153.]
	There is clear evidence that Gatwick is now competing with other London area airports. Airlines and passengers are moving between those competing airports in the south-east, and airlines are choosing Gatwick in preference to other airports to establish brand-new routes to countries that are key trading partners. Any legal test should reflect those trends, and there should be no risk of presumption towards regulation.
	The correct threshold for economic regulation of any company, including an airport, involves the application of the legal concept of dominance, which is well established in both European Union and United Kingdom competition law. It is used, for example, to determine whether telecom network operators should be subject to economic regulation in all EU member countries. Any test for market power should also be one of dominance. That would ensure a consistent approach to assessing whether there is a need to regulate in line with the regulation of other industries.
	I welcome this updating of legislation for the air industry. I believe that it gives us an opportunity to enhance our gift as an innovative aviation and trading nation, and to grow the economic prosperity and employment that we need.

Louise Ellman: I am pleased to be able to speak in the debate because this is an important Bill that reflects the significance of aviation to our economy. I am glad that there is so much agreement on the essentials, and I am pleased that the Select Committee on Transport was able to consider aspects of the Bill not once but twice, given some rather curious timing which my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) described as “dislocated”. I have not heard that word used before in connection with consideration of a Bill, but perhaps it is indeed relevant.
	We conducted pre-legislative scrutiny, but the parliamentary debate on the Bill began within about two days of the publication of our report. We then considered separately the proposals for reform of ATOL holiday insurance, when we had fuller information about the Government’s plans. In both our inquiries we generally supported the Bill, but we sought a number of changes and made a number of criticisms, some—but not all—of which have been taken up. I want now to refer to some of the concerns that we raised, which have been reflected in other parts of the debate on the Bill.
	The Bill’s focus on passenger experience and welfare is greatly welcomed, but it is important for that work to be conducted efficiently and effectively, particularly when it comes to the production of information about different experiences in different airports. When we were considering the Bill, concerns were expressed by a number of airports—especially regional airports—which were suffering as a consequence of the current economic hardships, and were worried about the increased cost that could result from the new regulation for which the Bill provides. It is important for the light-touch regulation to be effective,
	producing correct and appropriate information that can benefit passengers by enabling them to decide how they wish to travel.
	How to deal with adverse weather conditions has exercised the House for a long time. Although the Bill does address the issue, we were disappointed to note that its proposals were not strong enough to ensure that all airports would draw up proper plans to deal with bad weather. We were told that the CAA would deal with the matter, but, although we are glad that it has been highlighted to a greater extent, we still feel that sufficient emphasis has not been placed on it in all instances.
	Our greatest concern, which has been vindicated by events since the publication of our report, was the need for much more effective co-ordination and working together by the Department for Transport and the Home Office. Our report addressed immigration queues—and, indeed, if we are interested in questions of passenger experience, we should note that among travellers’ greatest concerns are baggage handling and queues at immigration. However, such queues are controlled by the Home Office through the UK Border Agency. We expressed concerns about a lack of co-operation, and subsequent events have reinforced that point. It is unclear how much co-ordination there is between the Department for Transport and the Home Office on how to deal with queues such as those at immigration and passport control. I hope that will be addressed once the Bill is enacted.
	Security is a linked area of concern. There has been a change in aviation security policy—a move to an outcome-focused, risk-based approach—and a split in responsibility for security between the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority acting on behalf of the airports. There is concern about how that division of responsibilities will operate while ensuring we maintain the highest standards of security in the most cost-effective manner. More thought needs to be given to how that is to be achieved. We also raised concerns about staffing and the initial proposals to move staffing from the Department to the CAA. We wondered whether expertise would be lost. The Department has addressed that in its response to our report, but concerns remain.
	Holiday insurance and ATOL reform are long-standing issues. The Committee has looked at that for many years, both in the previous Parliament and this one. The ATOL scheme was introduced in the 1970s. At that time it fitted the way most people went on holiday, which was on conventional package holidays. The situation has changed dramatically, however. Before the changes that came into force a few weeks ago, only about 50% of people going on holiday were covered by ATOL, and there was a £42 million deficit in the scheme. We support the Government’s proposed changes, such as the extension of what constitutes a package holiday—or, rather, a qualifying holiday—the introduction of flight-plus and requiring tour companies and transport operators to provide a certificate where ATOL is in force, giving clearer information to the traveller about what is covered by the insurance.
	I understand that about 60% of travellers will be covered under the new scheme, but I urge the Minister to use the powers under the Bill to extend ATOL further to incorporate holidays sold by airlines. Other tourist companies and operators feel a deep sense of grievance that while they have to pay the levies associated
	with ATOL, when airlines sell holidays they do not have to do so and do not face the same costs. I hope that will be dealt with, along with companies designated as agents for the consumer also being able to avoid some of the liabilities that other holiday companies have to take up. Although we welcome these changes, a much broader look at how the scheme operates is needed.
	We also think there is a need for more information on what the consumers—the travellers—actually want. There is little information about the views of travellers. They might, for instance, want more information on other forms of available insurance. Although I repeat that we certainly welcome the Government’s measures, they need to go further.
	More work can be done on all those points of concern, although I reiterate that there is general support for the Bill. I view the items of concern I have mentioned as works in progress and I hope that the Minister can assure us that she sees them in that light too. I hope that she can give us an absolute commitment that there will be closer working between the Department and the Home Office on the queues at our airports so that that problem, at least, can be dealt with satisfactorily as soon as possible.

Julian Huppert: I thank the shadow Minister for his praise and I am glad that he listened to my comments about the first version of the amendment. I was about to say that I welcomed its intentions and was very pleased that it was improved. I think that it is almost at a stage where it could be accepted. Unfortunately, it was not quite there.
	I was wondering whether to use some of the criticisms that I had stored up, and I shall use one. One thing that concerns me about the shadow Minister’s position is his party’s overall position on the environment. The new shadow Environment Minister whose post was announced in the recent reshuffle—the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris)— said on Second Reading that he hoped his party would support the third runway at Heathrow and argued that concern for the environment was really a form of class warfare, saying that we were coming up with environmental concerns because people with less money were able to fly. I am sure that that is not what the shadow Transport Minister, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), means and I hope that he will be successful in persuading his colleagues to take a more sensible approach.

Gavin Shuker: I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to speak. It is particularly expedient that I should do so after the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), for reasons that I shall come to. First, let me address one of the issues at the heart of the Bill: passenger experience. We welcome the Bill, which we sought to amend and improve in Committee. I was proud to serve on the Committee with colleagues from the Opposition Benches, some of whom are present. When things go wrong for someone at an airport their first instinct is to blame the airline, but it is rarely the airline that is at fault. We have seen such experiences at several airports and some bubbling discontentment, particularly more recently as a result of immigration and other issues such as poor weather. That is why we sought to put welfare plans for passengers into the Bill and why we sought to help disabled passengers more explicitly by putting such measures in the licence conditions. The two Front-Bench teams have explained their differences on where the emphasis should be.
	For me, the key issue is about holding airport operators to account. I served on the Select Committee on Transport, and I remember seeing the chief executive of BAA come before the Committee shortly after the December 2010 snow disruption and confess that, of the 80 different measures of Heathrow’s success that were taken in December 2010, only three or four had been breached and marked as red, whereas every other box had been ticked green. In a sense, that underlines why we need to be really explicit about what we want to measure. I am sure that the CAA will be good at that, although the Opposition would have preferred the Government to have a more active role at the legislation stage.
	The second issue I want to address is environmental responsibilities. In Committee, we felt it would be extremely helpful and effective if the CAA had a clear duty on the environment, and at one stage it appeared that the Department for Transport believed that too. Certainly, as the Bill came through, we saw from its drafting that that would not be included. I am talking about giving environmental information to passengers so that they can make smarter choices and about making sure that the CAA, as an economic regulator, can do its job, balancing the needs of the economy alongside the needs of the environment.
	I wanted to speak to this Bill not just because I represent an airport constituency—Luton airport, which many people will know and love—but because I am deeply concerned about growth. We know that there is limited growth in the economy, to put it mildly, and that we need a long-term strategy for growth. As the Minister
	has pointed out, if aviation is one of the routes for that growth, it is important to have continuity and consistency in the Government’s approach. That is why I am so concerned about the remarks that we heard in Committee, which the hon. Member for Cambridge spoke about.
	A Liberal Democrat member of the Committee whom I shall not name—okay, I will, it was the hon. Member for Cambridge—said in Committee:
	“I would very much like to see an environmental duty in the Bill. That is an important issue, and I raised it on Second Reading.”
	He went on:
	“I am confident that she”—
	the Minister of State—
	“will…find a way to deliver an environmental duty in this Bill…It is not a trivial issue.”––[Official Report, Civil Aviation Public Bill Committee, 28 February 2012; c. 116-17.]
	We await to see whether the Minister is willing to give to her coalition colleague that assurance. We certainly felt that the point might have been more easily pressed home had the hon. Gentleman voted for it in the first place. I say that not to embarrass any particular Member on the Government side—honestly—but because I think the issue goes to the heart of aviation strategy more broadly under this Government. As with many issues under the coalition Government, we have one party on the accelerator and one party on the brake. Sometimes those flip around, but on aviation strategy the nature of the coalition becomes even more disparate. We have two people on the accelerator and one on the brake, or one on the accelerator and two on the brake at different times. There is no clarity for the industry about where this Government want to take aviation. That should be a big concern for us.
	We know the issues in aviation; the big one that needs to be tackled is the requirement for greater capacity in the south-east. With reference to Luton airport, we know that the Minister is deeply interested in point to point and she is right. We should make more effective use of the capacity that we have. I hope the ministerial team will bring forward commitments on that in the coming months. We can go from 8 million passengers to a greater number without doing significant ground works or extending the runway.
	We need resolution on whether there will be a genuine hub airport—one that does not fall over when it snows, when it rains, when there are small amounts of disruption. While that issue remains unresolved, perhaps because of the nature of coalition government, perhaps because of geographic requirements on Ministers or individual MPs, simply saying no is not a policy.

Graham Stuart: Normally at this time of night the House is emptying, not filling up. Instead, colleagues are coming into the Chamber because of their concern about the imposition of VAT on static caravans. If enacted, the Government’s proposal to impose VAT on static caravans will cost jobs. Only today, Willerby Holiday Homes, Britain’s largest caravan manufacturer, announced plans for 350 redundancies in anticipation of the tax rise. Jobs will be lost not only in manufacturing and the supply chain, but in the parks themselves, which employ 26,000 people directly across the country. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for allowing us half an hour this evening to present these petitions on behalf of so many constituencies across the country. Although I will read out the full text, Mr Deputy Speaker, you have asked that others do not do so.
	In addition to presenting a petition on behalf of those in Beverley and Holderness, I am presenting petitions from the constituencies of: Birmingham, Northfield; Blackpool South; Blyth Valley; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton; Bridgwater and West Somerset; Carlisle; Christchurch; Clacton-on-Sea; Dwyfor Meirionnydd—I hope there are no more Welsh constituencies to trouble me; Eastleigh; Filton and Bradley Stoke; Forest Heath; Harwich and North Essex; Islwyn; Milton Keynes South; Montgomeryshire—I am confident about pronouncing that one; New Forest West; North Devon; North Norfolk; Poole; Rochdale; Selby and Ainsty—I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) in his seat and supporting this presentation; Shrewsbury and Atcham—I am also delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) in his seat; South Dorset; South Down; Stirling; Tynemouth; Wells—I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) in her seat; West Bromwich West; West Dorset; West Worcestershire; and Workington. Mr Deputy Speaker, you can tell the breadth and depth of concern about this issue.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of residents of Beverley and Holderness Constituency,
	Declares that the Petitioners believe that levying VAT on static holiday caravans would cost thousands of jobs in caravan manufacturing, from their suppliers, and in the wider UK holiday industry; and notes that the Petitioners believe that such a levy would lose revenue for the Government.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to reverse its decision to levy VAT on static caravans.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P001027]
	The following petitions were also presented:
	The Petition of residents of Rochdale.
	[P001060]
	The Petition of residents of Christchurch,
	[P001061]
	The Petition of residents of West Bromwich West.
	[P001062]
	The Petition of residents of Dwyfor Meirionnydd.
	[P001063]
	The Petition of residents of Clacton on Sea.
	[P001064]
	The Petition of residents of South Down.
	[P001065]
	The Petition of residents of Bridgewater and West Somerset.
	[P001066]
	The Petition of residents of West Dorset.
	[P001067]
	The Petition of residents of Filton and Bradley Stoke.
	[P001068]
	The Petition of residents of Montgomeryshire.
	[P001069]
	The Petition of Residents of Ceredigion.
	[P001070]
	The Petition of Residents of Eastleigh.
	[P001071]
	The Petition of Residents of Selby and Ainsty.
	[P001072]
	The Petition of residents of Birmingham Northfield.
	[P001073]
	The Petition of residents of Poole.
	[P001074]
	The Petition of residents of Blyth Valley.
	[P001075]
	The Petition of residents of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.
	[P001076]
	The Petition of residents of Forest Heath,
	[P001077]
	The Petition of residents of Carlisle.
	[P001078]
	The Petition of residents of South Dorset.
	[P001079]
	The Petition of residents of Tynemouth,
	[P001080]
	The Petition of residents of North Norfolk.
	[P001081]
	The Petition of residents of North Devon.
	[P001082]
	The Petition of residents of Stirling.
	[P001083]
	The Petition of residents of Harwich and North Essex.
	[P001084]
	The Petition of Residents of Blackpool South.
	[P001085]
	The Petition of residents of Workington.
	[P001086]
	The Petition of residents of Islwyn.
	[P001087]
	The Petition of residents of New Forest West.
	[P001088]
	The Petition of residents of Shrewsbury and Atcham.
	[P001090]
	The Petition of residents of Milton Keynes South.
	[P001091]
	The Petition of residents of Ludlow.
	[P001092]
	The Petition of residents of West Worcestershire.
	[P001093]